Concert covers entire range of singer's music
RENO, Nev. (AP)- Midway through a concert here, as Olivia Newton-John is chatting with the crowd between songs, a male fan shouts, “You’re my childhood idol!”
Without missing a beat, Newton-John giggles and replies, “You must be very old.”
Consider it more a tribute to her enduring popularity than a comment on her age.
Newton-John just celebrated her 51st birthday.
She is well along in her first tour of the United States since 1983 and is headed toward a new movie role as well.
“I think what’s kind of interesting about this business is that things keep opening up. I really had no intention of returning, but mentally and emotionally, I’m more ready than ever,” she said.
She sips tea, chatting softly against the background hum of a vaporizer that she uses to counteract the Nevada desert dryness. She puts down her cup when her breast cancer is mentioned.
“I draw attention to it. I talk about it even on stage, because the feedback I get is that by talking about it, by having survived it, I help other women who are going through that,” she said.
Newton-John recalled a chance meeting as she was recovering in 1992.
“It was Australia. Everybody knows what I do. So this lady comes up to me in the bathroom telling me not to worry, because she had cancer 20 years ago, and she’s fine. It was, like, WOW! It was such a great feeling to have somebody say that to me. I’ll always remember those few words.”
Except for one brief costume change, Newton-John sang nearly two hours to a capacity audience without a break.
“It sounded really daunting when we started, but now it flies by. You’re getting audience feedback. It’s not like you’re singing to a void,” she said.
The three-song set from “Grease,” her 1978 film, was as much a sing-along as a performance.
“The people come to hear your songs. And they don’t want to hear them different,” she said. “I remember when I was really young, I went to see an entertainer that I loved, and she didn’t do her hits, and I was really disappointed, so I’ve always remembered that.”
Along with the medley from “Grease” and the title song from the 1980 film “Xanadu,” she mixed the twangy “If You Love Me, Let Me Know,” “Let Me Be There” and “If Not for You” with the soft “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “I Honestly Love You.”
“It’s a journey through all of my music. I haven’t done everything. because I couldn’t fit it all in,” she said.
The crowd - whose average age fell somewhere between Gen-X and baby boomers-wore “Grease” and “Xanadu” T-shirts. Some carried record albums, compact discs and scrapbooks for her to autograph.
She hopes to do a new album and concert tape from the tour.
Her next project is independent film “Sordid Lives.”
“It’s a quirky kind of movie, a funny movie,” she said. “I’m going to play a singer in it. I play kind of a toughie. It’ll be very different for me.”
Didn’t Sandy get a little gritty in “Grease” when she got her perm, put on her leather jacket and sneaked that drag off a cigarette?
“This is taking it a bit further. This is like an ex-con this time,” she said.
I draw attention to it. I talk about it even on stage, because the feedback I get is that by talking about it, by having survived it, I help other women who are going through that.”
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN singer
More from Olivia’s 1999 Summer tour of the USA.